SUMMARY - 200mb SCSI drives

I wrote last week asking about internal 200Mb SCSI drives for the 4/60.

Many respondents indicated that both the Quantum PRO210 and the Conner
3200F were good drives. Other people reported good results with the
Maxtor LXT200S (and now 213S) and the Fuji M2246.

I ended up buying the Quantum drive from APS (Alliance Peripheral
Systems) for $799 including Sparc mounting bracket and cables. 2nd-day
shipping brought the total to ~$815. APS deals mainly in Mac drives.
However, they have a good reputation for customer service and tested the
drive for 24hrs before shipping. Since the drive had a Mac format on it
(different checksum), I had to reformat when it arrived, but formatting
went quickly.

The main area of concern was that some of the 200Mb drives generate a
significant amount of heat (more than the 4/6[05] was designed to
handle). However, nobody actually reported heat-related problems, and
several indicated using the drives without incident. Personally, I've
decided not to mount a 2nd internal drive in the 4/60 as long as the
Quantum 210 is there. When mounting the drive, people suggested that
the "middle" drive position is cooler than the one in the corner. Also,
the Conner drive reportedly runs the coolest of the available drives.

Some people reported PROM compatibility problems with some Quantum
drives. The new PRO210 I received from APS boots fine on a 4/60.

I asked about format.dat entries also. I got several drastically
different entries for the drives (especially for the Quantum). Since
the intelligence is built onto the drive, the exact geometry specified
seems to make little difference so long as the totals are correct.